SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill to require human drivers on board self-driving trucks, a measure that union leaders and truck drivers said would save hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state.

  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I’m sorry, but do people actually think human drivers in autonomous vehicles will make them safe?

    Imagine sitting and watching a robot do its job for hours - do you think you’d be attentive to safety problems after all that time?

    • Astroturfed@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Have you never seen the traffic jams caused by these things getting confused and not being able to figure a way out?.. the drivers there so people don’t get stuck behind them for an hour while someone from fuckyoutech comes out to fix it.

      • Dirk Darkly@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        No, but I have sat in a traffic jam caused by a human driver who caused a multiple car pile up because they wanted to be slightly ahead.

        • Astroturfed@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s almost like more than one thing can be bad. Autonomous cars are just a shitty bandaid solution that doesn’t fix the problem.

            • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
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              1 year ago

              Ban all cars. bus, tram and trains need to be so great that you can actually stand driving in them. But they’re only important for winter or when it rains mostly anyway. Otherwise you take the bike, ebike or scooter. We would need to find a solution for carrying lots of groceries obviously. Remember when people hat little trollies behind them when grocery shopping?

              (Obviously in summer a disabled person would still ride them. Not trying to be ableist here)

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                Ban all cars

                Hard disagree here. Mass transit should win because it’s more convenient, not because it’s the only option.

                I’m in favor of car-free zones, rerouting cars around city centers, tolls in busy areas, and in general making car transit less convenient, but it should still be feasible to get where you’re going in a car. The problem is that we’ve made our cities car-centric so mass transit is forced to be inconvenient, and that should be reversed.

                But I will never accept banning cars, because that’s how you get the worst of both worlds.

                • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  1 year ago

                  Okay. I agree that i was a bit far with my phrasing. I should have said „in city centers“. I live in a city and I don’t see a reason to use or even own a car 9/10 times (if the transit is good, which it isnt in my city).

                  But I‘d like to address something else here. If we had no cars, we would take a lot longer to do things and become much less productive and less stressed, which is becoming a big problem rn.

                  So, maybe a conpromise between both our ideas would be good. I‘d like to achive throwing a wrench in our capitalist steam machine turning our planet to a pile of shit.

                  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                    1 year ago

                    I should have said „in city centers“

                    I like how Amsterdam does it, check out this video (whole video and channel are worth watching) that discusses how they force cars to go around the city center instead of through it to avoid a lot of conflict with pedestrians.

                    However, that kind of thinking shouldn’t be exclusive to “city centers,” it should be the default way we plan cities. Make mass transit super effective in the core of the city or town, connect everyone to those hubs, and provide a way to get around and into (but not through) city and town centers via cars so people are encouraged (but not forced) to use mass transit.

                    Ideally, anyone living in a reasonably densely populated area should be able to get everything they need w/o a car. That should be the goal, and a lot of the solution is to use mixed zoning around transit hubs (i.e. businesses on the ground level, apartments above) and feed into that with roads that connect lower-density areas. The vast majority of your businesses should be close to transit hubs, and the vast majority of your busy roads should be away from city centers.

                    we would take a lot longer to do things and become much less productive and less stressed

                    I don’t think that’s true, and I think you’re looking at things with rose-colored glasses.

                    200 years ago, most people were subsistence farmers, and that’s around the time that started to end. See this Wikipedia article:

                    Even by 1750, low prevalence of hunger had helped provide American Colonists with an estimated life expectancy of 51 years…

                    Social and economic conditions changed substantially in the early 19th century, especially with the market reforms of the 1830s. While overall prosperity increased, productive land became harder to come by, and was often only available for those who could afford substantial rates… by 1850, life expectancy in the US had dropped to 43 years, about the same as then prevailed in Western Europe.

                    This got worse as the US industrialized in the late 1800s, and people adapted:

                    By the turn of the century, improved economic conditions were helping to reduce hunger for all sections of society, even the poorest. The early 20th century saw a substantial rise in agricultural productivity; while this led to rural unemployment even in the otherwise “roaring” 1920s, it helped lower food prices throughout the United States. During World War I and its aftermath, the U.S. was able to send over 20 million pounds of food to relieve hunger in Europe. The United States has since been a world leader for relieving hunger internationally

                    These days, starvation isn’t really a thing in the US, and it has been replaced with “food insecurity,” which is more about consistency and quality of food, not whether someone can survive on the amount of food they’re getting. So the stress related to food has improved due to productivity and has been replaced with an economic/distribution issue instead of a production issue.

                    I could go on about different types of stressors, like risk of death, dangers from natural disasters, etc, but I think I’ve made my point. Increased productivity has made a ton of things better, and we’re now at a life expectancy of >80 years old, compared to leading the world at 51 years old some 250 years ago.

                    If we look at life 100 years ago, life was hard, and certainly full of stress.

                    Here are some other interesting links to look at:

                    These are obviously extreme examples, but my point is that innovations in productivity generally improve peoples’ lifestyles. Even the poorest Americans can travel to the other side of the country and back if they wanted, and most people own smartphones. If we look at today, the stressors are very different from even 50 years ago.

                    So, would you like to go back to how things used to work? I’m guessing no, but I obviously can’t speak for you.

          • Neato@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Autonomous cars are the only viable solution in the near to mid term. Human drivers are awful. Building out mass-transit and transport infrastructure is a generations-long process and very politically unpopular. Autonomous vehicles will have issues that can only be ironed out in live testing. Which sucks but that’s how all innovations go.

            • Astroturfed@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Autonomous cars are decades away from hitting any level of meaningful saturation. Might as well work on the more practical solutions…

              • Neato@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                What’s more practical? Redesigning all of US’s cities to work without cars? High-speed cross-country rail? Mass transit in every town?

                That’s more practical than passing regulations that allow the few companies even attempting automation to test it? This is just a “if it’s not perfect don’t do it” mentality that stops any attempts at progress.

                • Astroturfed@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  You’re just an angry douche putting words in my mouth. Never said they can’t roll out automated cars. Just said they might as well work on the more practical long term solutions.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I live in the land of bad drivers, and long haul truckers almost NEVER cause accidents. The cause is almost always a passenger vehicle, even if a truck is involved. Truckers get trained.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        That’s fair, but I was more concerned about an accident being caused where the “driver” has seconds to react to a mistake the car is making. After sitting doing nothing for hours there’s no way they’d be attentive until it’s too late.

        • Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          They would be more likely to stop the accident from happening if they were there as opposed to not being there.

            • ANGRY_MAPLE@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              At the current level of autonomous vehicle abilities, I agree with you, in a broad sense. Vehicles will need to still be able to differentiate between shapes, even during bad weather. Weather like blizzards, sudden downpours, heavy fog, dust storms, and the like. You still have to be able to see to safely pull off of the road.

              Until we can guarantee with 100% certainty that they can truly drive without aid, I completely agree that these vehicles would not be safe on their own. Weather is very well known for being unpredictable at times. Life in general is also known for being unpredictable at times.

              What happens if the sensors are unknowingly damaged? What happens if someone is wearing a costume that makes them look like a giant cereal box instead of human-shaped? What happens if there’s a software glitch at a bad time? What protections are there to guarantee that it doesn’t happen? Are those protections temporary? How often should they be reviewed?

              It should be OK to acknowledge that we aren’t quite there yet. Yes, it seems cool and all, but it’s silly to risk lives over impatience. If it will happen, it will happen. Forcing it to happen sooner than it should could very well lead to it being banned altogether, especially if enough people die or get injured as a result.

              IMO, anyone who causes serious crashes from using these things in “fully autonomous” mode should be charged as if the vehicle wasn’t autonomous. As if the accident was caused by sleeping behind the wheel or texting while driving. The company should be charged similarly in that scenario, as their programming and marketing would also play a part in the crash.

              Hey, if they’re truly safe, none of these charges would actually happen. If there isn’t an “oops” death in the first place, there won’t be an “oops” death to investigate.

        • spitfire@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          Anyone who uses FSD on their Tesla would happily tell you it’s not even close to being safe yet. Hell if anything I’m MORE attentive when using the autopilot because it can be so sketch sometimes.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Hell if anything I’m MORE attentive when using the autopilot because it can be so sketch sometimes.

            I doubt you’re more attentive than someone who is literally driving lol

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                And zoning out would be much worse with computer assistance!

                Actually cars should be abolished for this very reason - humans can never be truly safe drivers, they always get bored and zone out.

      • p1mrx@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Self-driving trucks will never be 100% autonomous. They will need a reliable data connection to a control center so humans can figure out how to deal with exceptional situations.

        There will probably be occasional stupid traffic jams until the technology is perfected. As long as they avoid murderous rampages, we should be okay.

        • Dibbix@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          We could.

          Might be better to just put the executives of those corporations in prison instead tho. I keep hearing how they’re worth their enormous salaries so they must be the ones responsible.

          • Dem Bosain@midwest.social
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            1 year ago

            But you can’t. Corporations are formed specifically to protect the people behind them from legal accountability. The CEO/ board can really only be punished for crimes against the corporation (embezzling, not trying to make money for shareholders, etc.) Even when the corp. very obviously causes deaths, it will just declare bankruptcy and reform under another name. Johnson & Johnson was sued for killing people because there’s asbestos in talcum powder, so they spun off the talc division into a different company, and then had that company declare bankruptcy.

            • Dibbix@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Wasn’t entirely serious. However if “corporations are people” then maybe they should face the same penalties people do.

    • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is a real thing, they are called operators and it is their job to oversee the cell, start and stop jobs, resolve bottlenecks, identify upstream problems and gracefully handle them, and emergency stop the system when needed.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, part of my job making car parts is as an operator for a cell. Im constantly moving, troubleshooting, doing minor maintenance, and actively engaged in the process.

        A driver-operator would be sitting down doing mostly nothing. Totally different

      • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I imagine they could do just as well having an operator sit in a cubicle all day flipping between video feeds of a dozen different vehicles. Then when manual control needs to be taken over they could operate it with a joystick or something and play truck simulator.

          • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            It still drives on its own, connection is just to monitor or to help get out of situations it might get stuck in so traffic jams don’t occur. If connection fails it would have been no different than having no driver in the cab which Is the plan already.

    • Madison_rogue@kbin.socialOP
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      1 year ago

      Yes. Tractors already have a number of built-in visual and audible alarms when the onboard sensors detect things like veering, severe pitch, and traffic. Oh, that and it’s a driver’s job to watch and respond to road conditions.

      Not to also mention that student driver teachers perform a job like this already.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Tractors aren’t traffic. That’s clearly very different.

        Student driver teachers, meanwhile, are teaching. That’s more than simply watching for mistakes, which would be an inhumanly boring job that I honestly don’t think anyone could do.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          Exactly. And student drivers are only active for like 20-30 min at a time. A truck would be active for hours at a time.

          Instead of trying to build autonomous trucks, we should be building out rail and move more stuff and people that way.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Yeah, but they don’t need to react within seconds when there is a problem. They can zone out and nothing bad will happen.

            A driver-operator needs to be hyper vigilant at all times and react within seconds to any problems because at any moment the software could fuck up and kill someone.

    • money_loo@1337lemmy.com
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      1 year ago

      This is a tech sub on lemmy.ml, prepare to be flooded by luddites afraid of all things tech. Eventually you learn subs only exist for the stuff people hates here, not the stuff people love.

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The luddites have been proven right, but your strawman of the luddites is absolutely wrong.

            • theluddite@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              I like technology. I think it can make our lives better, but some people, notably capitalists, often use technology to make our lives worse. When that happens, we should smash their machines.

        • money_loo@1337lemmy.com
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          Y’know it’s funny because one of the proposed benefits of lemmy was the decentralized nature of the forums meant you could pick from the ones you liked, yet I’ve subbed to 5 tech instances here and they are all exactly the same. Nothing but F.U.D. This will be the last remaining one I unsubscribe from, and even end up blocking because of the nonsense.

          So, yeah, apparently that thing being a benefit was a lie when in reality it will just populate with the same people saying the same things.

          Ah well…enjoy your echo chambers I guess!

            • money_loo@1337lemmy.com
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              1 year ago

              Or more likely, the people who hate something the most are more likely to post about it than people who love it or are ambivalent. No worries though, I blocked the forum so we won’t have to trouble each other anymore.

              • ANGRY_MAPLE@sh.itjust.works
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                You also can want safety improvements before something becomes widespread without also “hating” it overall, you know.

                The choice doesn’t have to be between “absolutely everything now”, and “never”. There’s a lot of room in between the two, and I see no reason to rush something, when unnecessarily rushing it could cost lives.